Green Day: Rock Band

I am a huge fan of both Green Day and Rock Band, so when I heard about Green Day: Rock Band, I could hardly wait. When this game finally came around, I loved this game. Whether you are a fan of their Dookie punk era, or their more current pop albums, such as 21st Century Breakdown, you will enjoy this game. If you are a huge fan of Rock Band and have never heard of Green Day (or vise versa), you will love this game.

I am going to start with the songs. All of their songs off of Dookie and American Idiot are in this game, and almost all the songs off of 21st Century Breakdown. Their albums from the mid to late 90's get a little less recognition, with 1 to 3 songs from each album in the game, but the songs they pick are really good. The most fun for drumming comes out of the Dookie album, where you really see drummer Tre Cool shine with a solo in Burnout or his craziness in Basket Case. Playing guitar and vocals at the same time in the game is extremely fun. American Idiot is the place to go if you a fan of the guitar or vocals. The best songs in the game are Jesus of Surburbia and Homecoming off of the American Idiot album. If you have never heard of these songs, they are each about nine minutes long, and every 1 or 2 minutes the song all of a sudden changes rhythm and sounds like a whole new song, kind of like Paradise by The Dashboard Light. There are a few things I have to say about 21st Century, their lowest point, in my opinion. First of all, there's Song of the Century, which was a waste, as it only has vocals in it, which shouldn't have been in the game. Also, my two favorite songs off of this album, and their two most well-known songs off this album, Know Your Enemy and 21 Guns weren't on the disc! Sure, you can download them as DLC, but I still which they were on the disc, which would have made it a lot easier. I am also mad that nothing before Dookie is in this game, which is a shame. There are 47 songs in total, 53 if you count DLC so far, which is a nice number, but it would have been nice to see some pre-Dookie stuff and more off of Nimrod and Insomniac, which would have been fun and would have made the song number a little nicer, but I'm still really satisfied with what we get.

One that I really hate about this game that shouldn't have been in here is this. As I mentioned, there are 47 in game songs, but there are a few instances where they take two Green Day songs and turn them into one long song, which actually makes the song number 44. This was a nice idea, but the problem is in all 3 instances they make the first song really easy, and the second song insanely hard. It's tough to pick a difficulty for songs like this. You will play Brain Stew on drums on expert being really bored, then all of a sudden, you fail 10 seconds into Jaded.

The career mode is decent. It's similar to the Beatles: Rock Band, where they follow the band in chronological order, which is more informative to the band's career, rather than Guitar Hero's method of putting songs in difficulty order. There might be a super hard song in the beginning of the game, then a really easy song in the end, but it helps show how the band progressed. However, The Beatles Rock Band's career mode was a little better. For example, in that game you had to play the career mode in chronological order, and they had the Beatles go to various point in their career, such as Shea Stadium, Japan, and Apple Rooftops. Green Day's career mode you can play in any order, and they don't go to a wide variety of sets. There's a made up place for the Dookie songs, The Warehouse. There's the Milton Keyes stage for everything up to American Idiot, then some other stage for 21st Century. I wish there was a more variety of places in the game to go to, like the Lollapalooza tour perhaps rather than The Warehouse. Or maybe there could have been imagination sequences, like in The Beatles when they have the songs at Abbey Road Studios. I found those very imaginative and fun. Green Day songs would have been perfect for these sequences, especially since their two newest albums, as a whole, tell stories.

The bonus features are the highlight of the game. Just like in Beatles RB, if you get 3 stars on a song you get a picture of the band, 5 starts gets you two pictures, which gives you another reason to get really mad for getting almost 5 stars on a song. This is what really kept me coming back to the game, trying to get 5 stars on all the songs to see what pictures there are. There are also the achievements again, which also make come back to try and win them all. Also, there are challenges in this game, like play certain songs in a row, or even the whole album. If you get enough stars upon completion, you net a video of the band, ranging from concerts to interviews, which are amazingly fun to watch,

In conclusion, buy this game. It has some flaws song-wise and career mode-wise, but the bonus features are amazing, and are a joy to watch. The visuals in the game are really good, they give a nice representation of a Green Day concert. Again, buy this game, even if you only like Green Day slightly, or if you only love Rock Band slightly.